, is the environment. and i'm going to end by telling a story of a young harvard college graduate, beautiful spring day in 1844 went for a walk in the woods outside of concord, and he did a little fishing, and the fishing was good. and then he came to cook the fish into a chowder. it is boston, after all. [laughter] and the wind came and flicked the flames that he was using to nearby dry grass, and a fire started, and it spread, and it spread. and eventually, it turned into a raging inferno which burn withed down more than 300 acres of prime woodland. in his own day this man was cast away, and it's hard not to see they were right because i can't think of any young man living in boston or cambridge who did as much damage to the environment as this man did. he is, of course, henry david thoreau whose book walden seems to preach a gospel, but his own life tells a very different story. his own life preaches the moral that we are a destructive species, and if you love nature, stay away from it. [laughter] as, indeed, thoreau would have done the world a wonderful amount of good if he had stayed home. now, th
